1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a facsimile device that can be connected to a plurality of lines and can transmit image data with TTI (Transmit Terminal Identifier) such as a sender's name,phone number and date/time of transmission to a receiver side.
2. Background Art
Facsimile devices can be functionally improved by being provided with communication ports, line units and the like to their main facsimile unit such that they can be connected to a plurality of lines. In the case of such facsimile devices, communication may be carried out during transmission by simply utilizing lines not in use. Communication may also be carried out by allocating each line to a different receiving side or by using separate lines for transmission and reception such that the processing efficiency of the facsimile communication is enhanced.
Further, such facsimile devices as described above may be provided with a simultaneous broadcasting communication function such that they can transmit the same contents to a plurality of third parties simultaneously through a plurality of lines. This simultaneous broadcasting communication makes the broadcasting process efficient because a plurality of lines are simultaneously used during the process.
In facsimile communication in general, TTI (Transmit Terminal Identifier) information such as the phone number of the used line, the sender's name, the date/time of transmission and the number of transmitted pages is attached to the header of the document data and transmitted so that the TTI is printed on the receiver's side at the top end of each page of the document. The receiving side can then refer to the phone number of the TTI of the received facsimile data when it attempts to make a facsimile transmission back to the sender.
However,when each of a plurality of lines (each line has a different phone number, of course) is allocated to a different receiving side, if the simultaneous broadcasting communication described above is carried out using the plurality of lines simultaneously, there is a possibility that each receiving side receives a "different" phone number of another line (that is, a phone number of another line that is not allocated to the receiver) as the TTl when the TTl is printed out. If this happens, the receiving side is likely to refer to this "different" phone number and use that another line when it transmits facsimile data back to the sender. This may cause a serious confusion for the information control system of the sender side because the receiving side is then using a line that it is not supposed to use.
Similarly, when the facsimile device on the sender side distinguishes the lines used exclusively for transmission from those used exclusively for reception, if facsimile data is received over the lines used exclusively for transmission, due to the confusion described above, the processing efficiency of the facsimile communication as a whole may be significantly lowered.